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Health & Fitness

Geneva Merchant of the Week: Hot Heads' Michelle Geen Worked With Madonna and Is in a 'League of Her Own'

Another classy merchant this week. I'm beginning to feel out of my league in this town.

This week hosted as Geneva Merchant of the Week. And again, I found myself out of my element in the world of style and fashion.

Now I know how comedian Jim Norton must feel when Jay Leno sends him off to cover fashion shows and society events. I’ve got the same gene for fashion sense that my uncle had. He could put on a brand new suit and look like he slept in it for a week. He had the Colombo look before Colombo. But I digress.

When you first meet Michelle Geen, the young, attractive and energetic owner of Hot Heads Salon and Boutique, you’d never guess she’s the mother of five children ranging in ages from 9 through 25. She has one graduated from college, two in college, and two in grade school. At a time when most parents are taking a breather, having gotten the kids off to college, Michelle and her husband Chris have moved on to the second round and seem to be enjoying it even more. Michelle is looking forward to getting involved with Fun Fair again and all of the other activities that seem to keep parents in school almost as much as their kids.

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Raising a family and running a business can be difficult, but it’s a team effort with Chris helping out at home, as well managing the books and personnel at . Michelle first opened Hot Heads in Roselle in 2005. She came to Geneva planning to open a boutique and found a place that could serve as both a salon and boutique. Last year she opened up shop at 507 South Third St. She and her husband love it here in Geneva.

Michelle comes from a show business family. But their work has all been behind the camera. Her grandfather was a gaffer and did the lighting for burlesque shows back in the forties. The term gaffer is still used for lighting technicians. It comes from the early days of filmmaking when only natural light was available and the amount of light for a scene was controlled by moving tent flaps using long poles called gaffs. Her grandfather later worked in lighting for ABC News.

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Her brothers are also gaffers and grips and recently worked on the Superman movie, parts of which were filmed just west of us in Sugar Grove. Michelle’s mother worked as a stylist on television and movie production sets. She recently worked on the television series Chicago Code and The Playboy Club.

Michelle grew up watching her mother style hair. She would practice curling her friends’ hair before bedtime when they were at summer camp. At the age of 18 she started styling hair on her own and two years later followed the family into the movie business, working on sets of movies being filmed in the Chicago area during the nineties.

She worked on the films A League of Their Own, Backdraft, My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Jimmy Hoffa Story, and The Babe, among others, as well as the television series The Untouchables. Michelle admits to being a little star-struck by Madonna, who was a megastar at the time A League of Their Own was filmed. But having grown up in a family in the film business, Michelle was accustomed to being around famous actors and actresses.

While Michelle was working on the movie sets, she worked closely with the wardrobe department to create just the right look for the actresses. They had to make sure that the hair styles and outfits worked together. Michelle has always loved fashion and putting together outfits, accessories, and hair styles. The salon and boutique give her the opportunity to combine two of her lifelong passions.

Working on movie sets is not all glamour and fun though. There is often a lot of pressure to meet the grueling demands of the filming schedule. Eighteen hour days are not uncommon and Michelle still worked at a salon in the off hours as part of her regular job. Working on the movies could be interesting, but it was also demanding and provided no employee benefits beyond the hourly salary.

When she was working on a movie, Michelle also felt she had no time for a life outside the set. That was no way to raise a family and raising a family was far more important to her. So in 1998 when she and Chris got married, Michelle decided it was time to quit and focus on raising her daughter and Chris’s two children. Michelle and Chris also wanted to have more children. Their two youngest are now 9 and 11.

What’s next for Michelle? Well, her other passion in life is dance. So do we have a possible future contestant for ? I’m sure Michelle would be up to the challenge. She’s already faced more challenging tasks in raising a family and starting a business.

This month is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Hot Heads is offering pink hair extensions as a fun way to show their support for breast health awareness and to help remind women to get annual mammograms. The extensions cost ten dollars and half of the proceeds are going to the Delnor Foundation to help support the Delnor Center for Breast Health.

I also ran into Len Bielefeldt of the  at last Wednesday's event. The Art Box is displaying the paintings that will be auctioned off to benefit the . The event is called Paintings for Parkinson’s and will be held at the Geneva Golf Club on Nov. 3

This Wednesday, Oct. 19, the Geneva Merchant of the Week will be Aggati-Minta, two businesses specializing in women’s accessories and fine home furnishings. Looks like another challenge for me.

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